Enigma
by BuntyBadger
Summary: After a nasty incident in Paris, an old woman tells Esmerelda the reason behind Clopin's actions. NO MARY SUES! HOORAY!


**I don't own Anyone, except Dooriyan and Card-reading Crowe. All others belong to Victor Hugo/ Disney**

_Through the summer and the fall, we had each other, that was all  
Just she and i together, like it was meant to be  
And when she was lonely, i was there to comfort her  
And i knew that she loved me.  
_**(Sarah Mclachlan)**

It was a sweet day in Paris. The hot June air caressed the streets with an almost motherly touch, bringing with it's fingertips the scents of the city; the sweet aroma of Monsieur Pierre's Bakery mixing with the intoxicating scent of rotten vegetables from the market, all a mishmash of smells and stenches. His own smell, a rich odour of incense, spice and sweat, however, seemed to cause more of a stir than others, or maybe it was his garish clothes and mask or the simple fact he was living a way of life which had been frowned upon for centuries that made the citizens of Paris stare and point.

Looking around his vibrant and invading stall, his long skinny fingers splayed onto the counter like two sienna spiders, His coffee- hued eyes searched around behind his beloved magenta mask, as though daring anyone to openly insult him right now. The sun blazed above him… how unusual, usually these days were the fastest and busiest. He whipped out his little puppet from a shelf under the counter, and decided that he would pass the time (and hopefully catch some attention) by talking and arguing with it, laughing with the small piece of cloth about people that walked past, the stuffed-shirted Frollo, and Esmerelda, his prize dancer and therefore main Breadwinner.

Eventually, he spied two children meander up to the caravan, their ragged brown clothes and shoeless feet told him that these kids had come from a wretched home, or perhaps, not even a home at all. Their faces however, were far from pitiful. The girl adorned her features with an angry, stern scowl, a few blonde strands of hair peeking out from behind a grubby beige headscarf. The little boy, however, his cheeks were sunken and his chin and nose were smudged with stains, but his eyes held a genuine simple happiness, as though oblivious to the world about him. The small boy had grasped the girl's sleeve with a forceful eagerness, drawn in by the puppet with the same helpless curiosity of a fly to a sunplant.

Clopin grinned… Showtime. It may get hard, especially during the summer (this outfit clings to tightly at this time) but to see the children's faces light up; well, it kept him from doing tricks for the middle class bohemians and prophets that dotted about the city streets. But however, the pay was one word the King of the Gypsies affectionately referred to as _chiotte_. In fact, he had barely enough for food… well, only food, really, and even then its apples and scrag end of mutton if it had been a good day.

"SO! WHAT STORY WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR?" He exclaimed to the children before him, his eyes lighting up at the sound of "uhhhhms" and "aaaahhhhs" coming from the tiny audience before him. The impish man before them decided to help them along, keep them on the hook and line.

"How about one about romance for the mademoiselle?" He leaned over, handing the frowning child a half- wilted flower, causing her true childish nature to shine through for a precious moment through a stifled giggle. Clopin made the puppet blow high-pitched kisses to her, making the girl return to her previous scowl, and batted the puppet about the head with a soft yet swift blow.

Clopin took this minor setback in his stride; he'd had hard audiences before. Instead, he focused on the smaller child, a forefinger buried deep inside his left nostril, his eyes transfixed on the colourful moving puppet before him. A little bubble floated up his gullet at the sight of something too easy. He hadn't even spoken to this little boy and already he was spellbound.

"Don't pick your nose, it's quite rude," Clopin pointed, his own nose almost touching the point of the child's, who's eyes were still focused on the puppet in the gypsy's eager hand, who burst out in hysterical laughter at the sight of the object of his hypnotism imitate him, picking it's "nose" with a felt, mitten-shaped hand.

"What, what are you laughing at? Is it my nose? I picked it too much at your age, and LOOK!" He pointed to his own, long, beak-like nose, the child quickly withdrawing the offending finger from the nostril region from fear of his own bird nose.

"Its your fault!" The puppet "spoke" up, which Clopin quickly rapped upon the head with his batting stick.

"So, before I was so RUDELY interrupted," He began, casting a sly look at the puppet in his hand. "Maybe the young monsieur here would prefer an action-"

Clopin stopped dead in the middle of his sentence, as a lanky, angry woman stormed up, her face a nastier version of what he assumed was her daughter's own frown, and leapt onto her two children like a lioness pouncing on her prey. They had no chance from their mother.

"JEANETTE! CLAUDE! I HVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! YOUR FATHER IS STILL WAITING FOR YOU AND HE DOESN'T LIKE BEING KEPT…" She grasped hold of the little girl's arms desperately, her bony claw-like fingers digging roughly and coldly into the upper arm of the little girl, who, crying and begging for forgiveness, grasped her brother, dropping the flower, which was quickly crumpled in the flurry of feet as she roughly jerked them both into line.

Clopin was speechless at this display, all he could do was blink as the woman scolded her children as though they had committed a murder. No wonder the daughter was how she was, so serious and cold, but now, as the woman destroyed her daughter through shakes and shrieks, that strong little body he had hardly managed to crack, dissolved before this bony, skinny bag of skin, dressed in what resembled a potato sack, screaming like a distressed turkey.

"Leave the children alone, mon cherie, for it's my fault. I trapped them in the world of make-believe for 10 minutes. For that I am justly sorry," Clopin piped up above the endless screams coming from the furious parent before him, not at all meaning a single word. But, the main thing was that he said it, right?

"Sorry?" The female before him seemed to change personality In a split second, becoming eerily soft, her milky blue eyes batting "seductively" at the gypsy before her, Clopin becoming more and more nauseous at the cheap display before his eyes.

"Well, well, well, I do believe it is time to CLOCK out!" He decided it would be a good time to leave, but as he began to frolic away (with today's few earnings, he'd return for his stall soon) the woman hungrily grasped his elbow, trapping him in an unpleasant grip.

"I must thank you for entertaining my children, but unfortunately, I have no money left," She looked up at the captive man. "I suppose… I could thank you in some _other_ way?" A flirtatious look flashed across her drawn-in face, her sunken eyes slowly undressing him. The Romany bit hard onto his lip in temptation, he couldn't accuse her of being cheap, even though she made it clear as crystal she was as loose as he was. Sweat dripped down his forehead… it had been long, too long, a month since his last session. However, he spied over her shoulder, and pointed out to her that her children had disappeared from sight.

"Yes, I know… they're used to it…" She leant against the caravan, the paint contrasting horribly with the yellow nicotine on the tips of her fingers.

"Used to it?" Clopin was genuinely becoming resentful of this woman. Her children were out on their own, the oldest no older than six, and she was here, flaunting herself at him, some random man, a Roma atop that, whom she had not even known for more than ten minutes. He eyed her, his lust taking a step back.

"Of course," She purred kitten- like into his ear. "Children have no place with adults… obviously you've never been a father, have you?"

At this, he grasped her shoulders and forced her away, feeling a horrid double sensation of vomit and disgust rise through his gullet, but instead of being sick, he found himself throwing up a barrage of French insults at the woman, his arms flailing madly, attracting the attention of the citizens about them, their discerning eyes tutting at this typical display of his kind's behaviour. Flames seemed to burst behind his very eyes, as though wishing the old whore before him would explode into a million pieces. She looked around her, all these eyes judging her every move, and immediately knew that the next one would be remembered. So she did what she could.

* * *

"She called WHAT?!?"

"Oh yes," He rolled his eyes. "Oh don't look at me that way, apparently all of us rape and pillage the _innocent_ folk," He said 'innocent' with particular disgust, the same tone he used with the term 'hypocrite' and 'normal'.

Esmerelda eyed her friend with a mixture of worry and tiredness. This hadn't been the first time he had been accused of this crime in public. Only his followers and a few others around them knew that their king would never, ever do such a thing (even if he had the very true reputation of being a fleeting midnight lover). She watched that infamous smile spread further across his lips as he retold her the story of his daring escape from the misleaden mob lead by that miserable slither of a woman with an enthusiastic passion, acting out certain parts with the hanging noose to represent swinging from signs (they were sat by the gallows) … but another emotion in his face told the girl he hadn't told her everything, something in his actions seemed to point to some other enigmatic reason for the events of the day.

"Clopin…" She stopped her friend in mid prance (there was no other word for it) with a swift grab of his shirt as he showed her how he had run along the balconies of the close- knit houses towards the court of miracles. "What else happened?"

"No-othing!" He sing-songed, which turned to a quick gasp as the dancer whipped the hat off his head and held it above Djali's face, his eyes turning into two famished holes in his head as he eyed yellow feather adornment with a hungry bleat.

"Tell me, or the hat becomes goat chow," She exclaimed fiercely, her right hand clenched firmly into her hip, her other hand raising above the goats nose teasingly as he snapped at the purple fabric.

"No, Esmeralda, not today, not now, not ever," He cried, reaching for his prized possession, and let out a whine as the goat snapped at the end of it, catching the mustard- yellow feather in his teeth, commenced to chewing it absent- mindedly.

"CLOPIN!"

"No,"

"Tell me,"

"I SAID NO!!!CHRIST, _tu te conduis comme une enfant!!!!_"

It was then Esmerelda realised that the stubborn man before her's nose was pushed firmly against hers, their eyes flashing dangerously at each-other, each refusing to back down. The gypsy girl breathed deeply, her full red lips juddering half in frustration at this man's doggedness, and half in surprise that the Court of Miracles very own jester and king wrapped up in one package seemed to change personality in an instant. She must have been aggravating a sore point.

Before she had a chance to register these thoughts and collect herself together, the Romany king finally decided enough was enough. Without uttering another word, he leapt from the gallows and made his across the empty courtyard, almost marching toward his caravan, leaving the girl breathing in the dust from the bottom of his shoes that billowed out from the soles as he hit the cobbled pavestones. Leaping from the gallows herself, followed by Djali who landed with a sound that closely resembled someone cracking a bag of walnuts together, she intended to follow him, but instead she slid down onto the floor, holding her legs tight, wishing that the man she had called "big brother" all her life would tell her the reason behind his little outburst, but Clopin was Clopin, and Esmerelda was Esmerelda. She was meddling, he was pent- up. She played with the hat before her, twiddling the rim between her long, tanned fingers absent- mindedly.

"You know, you'll never get it out of him like that," Said an elderly voice to the side of her. Her head turned to face an elderly gypsy crone the court called Card-reader Crowe. She were sat on the steps to her caravan , her orange dress almost reflected back onto her aged face, her belly straining through the fabric, clumsily sewing what looked to Esmeralda a shirt, but this woman wasn't famous for her sewing skills, due to the cataracts eating her sight away.

"Oh Crowe, I don't know… Wait, you know something?"

The crone ceased her sewing, placing two dark weathered hands tiredly onto her lap and looked at the young lady, who had sat down beside her in curiosity.

"How old was you twenty years ago, child?" She asked, her milky eyes scooting from Esmerelda to her sewing.

"I was… I was… about six," She struggled. No-one really knew maths, and definitely didn't know how to read and write.

"Then you were too young to remember. Esmerelda, did you know that twenty years ago, Clopin had a son?"

This shocked Esmerelda, her pea green eyes widening in surprise. She peered in closer, sceptical.

"Wait, I think even at six I'd remember a mini Clopin running around…"

"No, No, no…" The crone sighed. "I'll start at the beginning. You see, back when our king was seventeen, he fell for my daughter, Dooriya. She was a few years older than him, about twenty-five, twenty-six. They made a funny match," She paused to chuckle reminiscently.

"Yes, she was a large woman, my Dooriya. Not very pretty, but not ugly. She was quite a burly girl, so when she met Clopin, I was worried she'd snap him in half. But turns out, he charmed her toward him. He always was the ladies' man…"

Esmerelda couldn't believe what she was hearing. He had never told her anything of this sort, or anyone else of this matter. It was then she realised Crowe had picked up her 'sewing', and was absent mindedly stitching random bits of fabric to the hem.

"Clopin wooed my daughter from here to kingdom come. Well, at least he tried. I found him hanging outside my window once, leaving flowers on her windowsill… she chased him all around the courtyard the next morning for waking her up. She insisted she hated it, but when you're a mother, you know when your daughter's lying. She seemed to brighten up around him, her eyes shone somehow… he loosened her up. I think he was her first true love, even though she was famous with the men. Then again, Clopin was with the girls! They were both as virginal as a mud snowball, the pair of them,"

Esmerelda moved in closer, captivated in hearing the teenage exploits of her brotherly figure, encouraging the woman to continue.

"Well, it didn't take long, but soon Dooriya was in the family way. I remember coming back from the market to find him staggering about, white as your shirt. He couldn't look me in the eyes. She'd told me herself as soon as she found out, so I found it amusing to watch him suffer like that. However, he got over it… eventually. They both mutually agreed not to marry, and he seemed to look forward to being a father. He even created a new act, his own little fairy story… I cant remember it now, but I remember him making a little Dooriya puppet."

Esmerelda giggled at this, but stopped abruptly when she saw Crowe's face.

"Dooriya went into labour… it was far too early, her waters broke in the court, I'll always remember this… Clopin was away somewhere, doing his act. She was carried into my caravan, screaming bloody murder, shrieking like a banshee in shock and fear. It wasn't pretty, not at all… no,"

"I delivered the baby, the poor little thing. We tried, but… the child was a stillborn. It was a hard birth, blood everywhere, all down her legs, through the bed…" The crone stopped to gulp what sounded like a sob. "But… but it was a double death. We wrapped the child in… oh what was it… Dooriya's headscarf. We covered my daughter's modesty with a blanket. I opened the door to the caravan to find thousands of eyes upon us, some happy, some excited, the ones who knew she was early were scared… but I was taken aback to find Clopin at my door. He was smiling and out of breath… he must have run here. Someone told me they'd gone to fetch him. He pushed past me, he was so excited to see his son. He didn't think for a second how early it was, but he didn't seem to care. All he thought was he had an heir, a lover, and that was that. He ran up laughing to Dooriya, but noticed something was wrong when she didn't answer any of his questions, or my face. I explained to him what had happened. Then I handed him the stillborn,"

Esmerelda found herself staring at Clopin's caravan, pity coursing through her like blood in a heart.

"Then what happened?" She continued.

"I'd never seen a man crumble like that… he lost everything that day, his love, his child… my daughter… he never spoke of the incident again. He ordered the court to silence about it, never to speak of his dead family to anyone… I just thought you needed to know, and why this is the reason why he's acting so funny today, dear. Just don't tell him I said so,"

Esmerelda sat, horrified. She nodded and gulped, swearing to take the story to her grave.

"Was today the day they died? She sighed, holding her knees close to her chest.

"Yes…"

Esmerelda cried for no man, but for her king? Her adoptive brother? His departed lover and lifeless child?

Tell me the truth… would you?

I _thought_ so.


End file.
